Temples

Open House Begins for the Concepción Chile Temple

The public is invited to tour the newly completed Concepción Chile Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is the faith’s second temple in Chile, the first having been completed in Santiago in 1983.

The First Presidency of the Church has announced that the open house will be held from Saturday, September 15, to Saturday, October 13, 2018, and run every day except Sundays (September 16, 23, 30 and October 7). Complimentary tickets are available for the temple open house at https://templeopenhouse.lds.org/.

The temple is located at Avenida Quinta Junge in Concepción, near the Biobío River. Tours will consist of a 10-minute video presentation followed by a 40-minute walking tour through the temple.

Following the public open house, the temple will be formally dedicated on Sunday, October 28. The dedication will be preceded by a youth devotional the previous evening.

The Concepción Chile Temple is the 160th temple of the Church in the world. It will serve some 122,000 Latter-day Saints in southern Chile and some southwest reaches of Argentina.

In October 2009, Church President Thomas S. Monson announced that a temple would be built in Concepción, and construction began with a formal groundbreaking on October 17, 2015.

The 23,000-square-foot temple was designed to reflect the neoclassic building style typical of other historic Chilean church buildings. The interior features original art glass, hand-tufted carpets and stone from Portugal and Spain. Also featured is beautiful lapis lazuli, native to Chile. The temple stands 124 feet tall and is crowned with a gilded statue of Moroni, a Book of Mormon prophet who is significant to Latter-day Saints for his role in the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Latter-day Saint temples differ from the meetinghouses or chapels where members meet for Sunday worship services. Temples are considered “houses of the Lord,” where the teachings of Jesus Christ are reaffirmed through marriage, baptism and other ceremonies that unite families.

More information about the purpose of temples, along with downloadable, high-resolution photos of the interior and exterior of the Concepción Chile Temple, is available on mormonnewsroom.org.